Education Projects

Today, we start each year with ten 4th and ten 5th grade students with the concept of taking on a new aspect of agriculture as well as maintaining those that have endured throughout the years. We have built and maintained for two years environments for breeding, raising and selling rabbits and chickens as well as an aquaponics system. We have been successful in the past with raised beds and vertical (stackers) gardening with over 1,000 strawberry plants. A long-term mixed fruit garden was established that has five varieties of Muscadine grapes, ten Brown Turkey fig trees, and three Florida Peach trees.

None of these projects would be possible without the support of Dr. Maria Scunziano-Singh and Dr. Pariksith Singh through the Auroveda Foundation. With their support, we have gone from six small raised bed gardens to commercial quality infrastructure in all our projects. They have been an integral part of the clubs’ ability to touch the lives of hundreds of club members and thousands of students here at PGES over the past eight years.

With the support of the University of Florida’s Agricultural Extension office, Hernando County native plant association, PGES’ Parent Teacher Organization (PTO), and a hand full of private donors, we removed an aging pond and its surrounding overgrown garden and replaced it with a 3,100 sq. foot Florida Friendly garden. This garden was designed by club members one year and installed by members the following year. This garden is a no water, no fertilize garden and has been utilized by thousands of students, other local clubs, and community activities throughout the years.

Currently, we have been given the task to establish a school farm that will be able to grow green leafy crops. The crops will be harvested, cleaned and delivered to our café for students to enjoy two to three times a week. We hope to take the “Farm to school” concept to a new level. This new concept will cut the lunchroom produce costs drastically and transform the slogan “Farm to School” to “Farm in School”.